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| Sejima & Nishizawa Office | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sejima & Nishizawa Office |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Founders | Kazuyo Sejima; Ryue Nishizawa |
| Headquarters | Tokyo; Kanagawa |
| Significant projects | 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art; Toyo Ito; Louvre Pyramid; Serpentine Gallery; Rolex Learning Center |
| Awards | Pritzker Prize; Venice Biennale; Japan Institute of Architects |
Sejima & Nishizawa Office Sejima & Nishizawa Office is a Japanese architecture firm established in 1997 by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, known for projects spanning museum, residential, cultural, and institutional commissions across Japan and internationally. Their practice is associated with collaborations and dialogues involving figures and institutions such as Toyo Ito, SANAA colleagues, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, and leading clients including the Japan Foundation, Getty Foundation, and Mori Art Museum. The office engages with competitions, exhibitions, and publications alongside organizations like the Venice Biennale, Royal Institute of British Architects, and Japan Institute of Architects.
The firm's origin in 1997 followed trajectories linking Sejima to engagements at Kazuyo Sejima with events like the Venice Biennale and teaching at Columbia University, and Nishizawa's earlier collaborations with figures associated with Tadao Ando, Fumihiko Maki, and Arata Isozaki; these antecedents intersect with institutions such as the Architectural Association, Harvard GSD, and Princeton University. Early commissions placed the practice in dialogue with clients and partners including the Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Suntory Museum, and the University of Tokyo, while participating in international competitions alongside Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and SANAA-related teams. Through the 2000s the office expanded its portfolio in Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Tokyo with projects that engaged municipal authorities, corporate patrons like Mitsubishi Estate, and cultural bodies such as the Japan Foundation and Arts Council Tokyo. The decade culminating in the 2010s brought connections with global exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery, Centre Pompidou, and collaborations on urban initiatives linked to the London Design Festival and Shenzhen Biennale.
Kazuyo Sejima studied at Yokohama National University and maintained professional ties to Toyo Ito, Kisho Kurokawa, and the Japan Institute of Architects before cofounding the office; her career includes academic posts at Columbia University and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and curatorial roles at the Venice Biennale. Ryue Nishizawa trained under Kazuyo Sejima and worked in contexts overlapping with SANAA peers, collaborating with architects like Tadao Ando and Fumihiko Maki and engaging with clients such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Kanagawa Prefecture. Both partners have held faculty positions at institutions including Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton University, and the ETH Zurich, and have participated in juries for the Pritzker Prize, Royal Institute of British Architects, and Praemium Imperiale.
The office's approach synthesizes concerns evident in works by Toyo Ito, SANAA, and Kazuyo Sejima's contemporaries, favoring lightness, transparency, and plan clarity similar to projects by Peter Zumthor, Alvaro Siza, and Louis Kahn. Their formal language often dialogues with minimal precedents from Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Adolf Loos while responding to site conditions as explored by Kengo Kuma, Tadao Ando, and John Pawson. Projects reference material experiments associated with Herzog & de Meuron, Tadao Ando's concrete palette, and SANAA's planar geometries, aligning the practice with curatorial narratives at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, and Tate Modern.
Highlighted commissions include the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, a project in conversation with museums such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Tate Modern; residential works that recall projects by Peter Zumthor and Alvaro Siza; and the Louvre-related museum dialogues that reference I. M. Pei's interventions. Other significant works link to institutions like the Serpentine Gallery, Rolex Learning Center, and Mori Art Museum, while urban insertions engage municipal programs similar to those by Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Foster + Partners, and Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Collaborative and competition projects placed the office alongside practices such as Zaha Hadid Architects, SANAA colleagues, and Herzog & de Meuron in international commissions for Venice Biennale pavilions, London Design Festival installations, and exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou.
The partners and the office have received honors paralleling accolades from the Pritzker Prize, Japan Institute of Architects Awards, and the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, and have been cited by institutions including the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Architectural Institute of Japan, and the American Institute of Architects. Recognition includes academic fellowships and prizes connected to Columbia University, Harvard GSD, and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and honors often shared on platforms curated by MoMA, Tate, and the Getty Foundation.
The office's work has been documented in monographs and catalogues alongside publications by Thames & Hudson, Princeton Architectural Press, and Actar, and featured in periodicals such as Architectural Review, Domus, El Croquis, and Architectural Record. Exhibitions have been mounted at the Venice Biennale, Serpentine Gallery, Centre Pompidou, MoMA, and the Guggenheim, and participation in symposiums at Harvard, ETH Zurich, and the Architectural Association has connected the practice to discourse promoted by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Getty Research Institute.
The practice operates from offices in Tokyo and Kanagawa, organizing teams that manage cultural, residential, educational, and civic commissions similar in scale to projects by SANAA, Herzog & de Meuron, and Foster + Partners. Project delivery combines competition-based procurement akin to Rem Koolhaas/OMA and collaborative client relationships seen with the Japan Foundation, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and private developers such as Mitsubishi Estate and Mori Building. The portfolio ranges from small-scale houses echoing works by Alvaro Siza and Peter Zumthor to public museums and institutional buildings comparable to commissions executed by Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, and Renzo Piano.
Category:Architecture firms of Japan